Customer Reviews
One of my favourite books - By: Chris Wood, 04 Aug 2008 
This is a beautiful piece of writing & a wonderful example of humanity. Orwell looks at some of the most downtrodden & neglectedin society, lives with them & brings back this amazing document of their experiences & the elements that influence their lives. His gaze is crystal clear & his concern for these bedraggled souls is touching. An astounding book, please read it.
A sobering book - By: DangermouseZilla, 30 Jan 2007 George Orwell felt awkward for being middle class, once he started to make a bit of money as an author this added to his awkwardness & he spent a lot of timein dank & impoverished surroundings.
This book is largely autobiographic, it tells of his time spent with the homeless. Orwell would pretend to be a tramp, not just pretend - he would live as a tramp from time to time. It was his time as a tramp that feed the ideasin this book.
Orwell writes about the camaraderiein the tramp community with warmth, you can feel his fondness for the people he is writing about.
The tramp experience covers only the second part of the book.
The first part describes the life of Parisian hotel/restaurant kitchen workers. It isn't glamorous. It is a life devoid of love, warmth, & happiness. Boris is the star of the "Paris" part of this book.
This is not only one of Orwell's finest pieces of work, it is a book that changes how you feel about life. When I read this book I was struggling financially - but this book put thingsin perspective, & I still imagine scenesin this book when times are hard.
The contrast between the "Paris" & "London" aspects of the book couldn't be more different, even though both are concerning that corner of society who seem to have nothing.
Read this book on the bus/train on the commute to work & you'll get lostin the dark visuals it inspires. The book had many place names & people's names removed for fear of being libellous, at first this seems clumsy but you get used to it.
Down and Out - read it - By: Mr. A. J. Clabburn, 09 Nov 2006 If ever there was a book deserving the title 'modern classic', this is it. A thought provoking & subtle collection of anecdotes that will make you laugh & out loud & balk at the extremes of poverty describedin equal measure. The fact that Orwell avoides self indulgence & manages to evoke a genuine sense of compassion is truely remarkable & whatever your political orientation, having read this book it is hard to feel anything but respect for the man.
Despite its age, down & out still strikes a resonant chordin the modern world & while much has changedin the intervening years, there are still enough parralels with todays society to make you take stock of the world we live in.
I greatly enjoyed this book & recommend everyone to read it.
La Vache Enragée - By: cluricaune, 31 Oct 2006 
George Orwell, whose real name is Eric Blair, was bornin Indiain 1903. He servedin Burma with the Indian Imperial Police & spent the end of the 1920s - as any self-respecting author would've done - livingin Paris . Orwell later fought for the Republicans against Francoin the Spanish Civil War. He became well-known following the publication of "Animal Farm" (a satire on Soviet Russia) & diedin 1950, shortly after the publication of "1984".
"Down & Outin Paris & London " was first publishedin 1933 & is a largely autobiographical account - though there have been a few tweaks here & there. It covers Orwell's times living on the breadline : working as a plongeurin Paris, being caught out by con-artists & life as a tramp on his return to England. The book was originally called "A Scullion's Diary" & - it would appear - focused only on his daysin Paris . After it was rejected a few times, Orwell tried his luck with the stories of his life on the streetsin & around London added. To be honest, I find it a pity this happened, as the stories setin Paris are much more readable. While some of the characters we meet - Charlie, for example - are far from admirable, Orwell himself doesn't come out of the book entirely unscathed. His occasional foolishness is forgivable, but his apparent snobbery & insincerity can be a bit hard to take. For example, as the book closes, he comments he'd like to know people like Paddy (a fellow tramp he'd metin England ) "intimately". However, on the very same page, the news of Paddy's apparent death is met with barely a shrug of the shoulders : "perhaps my informant was mixing him up with someone else". More honestly, it's clear from how he wrote about Paddy that Orwell considered himself better than his 'mate' & - rather than getting to know him intimately - just didn't care.
Recommended with reservations : if you only read two books by George Orwell, make this your third pick.
The poverty classic, timeless - By: Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, 22 Apr 2006 Orwell lived the life. Remember watching the movie 'Moulin Rouge' & seeing the romantic vision of a struggling artist bashing out words on a typewriter, plagued by poverty & alcoholism one moment only to be feted as a genius the next. This was a reality for Orwell, though he did not enjoy the overnight success Ewen McGregor managedin the movie. What is interesting is that Orwell noted his experiences. He sought out new places to see & experiencein a headlong rush into the reality of poverty. He found a humanity amongst the poor that was never presentin the wealthy & documents this without patronising them as a class. This is one of the best studies of poverty & its reality within the twentieth century & should be studied by any reader with an interestin how we ended upin the present situation.
